Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde

Tom Sintobin

'schamel stuk mens'?
Handicap in regionale literatuur uit de eerste helft van de twintigste eeuw

Abstract -- The discourse on the highly disputed genre of regional fiction is haunted by a fascination for health and sickness. Quite often, regional literature is associated with the former, whereas urban literature is said to indulge in the latter. This article takes a closer look at the representation of disabled characters, a phenomenon that is remarkably frequent. There appear to be two dominant visions on disability in play: regeneration (the character's handicap is compensated by its talent in another field) and degeneration (the character's handicap proves evidence of the region's devastating isolation). The fact that these conflicting visions can both be found in regional novels makes it necessary to rethink the conventional definitions of the genre.

TNTL 122-4 (december 2006), 309-327